....you know that "Titanic" is the most successful movie of all time ?......

in a purely finantial way ..
its not a great movie and you never hear a soul mention it anymore.
It's not that old and it's already becoming quickly forgotten.

granted this might be a sign of the times .. the 'movie culture' is different now. There's always something bigger and better coming down the pipe to knock the last one out of our minds ..

but still, Titanic was a bloated extraveganza that did well for time but will never hold its own against the classics of days past because it didnt have the star power, and wasnt that good a story (other than the actual fact that the ship sunk)
It was bogged down with a completely gratuitous and unneccessary side story excecuted by a hamfisted director (something that works in action - not in historical drama)
The scope and depth of GWTW let alone the world class acting puts it miles above titanic.

Titanic will barely be remembered a few years from now ....

Okay, let me clarify a few things...

We shouldn't define classic strictly by its age in years. Generally speaking, a film is old enough to be considered a classic when those stylistic elements that once made it seem modern and comtemporary have become so dated that they now appear artificial and stylized. For example, Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films with Vincent Price: when they came out, they were considered inferior to classic Universal horror movies, because Corman's films were in widescreen and color, and everyone "knew" that great horror movies only came in black-and-white. But forty years later, Corman's films look as stylized and artificial as anything from Universal; it's just a different kind of stylization.

As for oxymorons like "instant classic" and "modern classic," those are words people throw around because they like to heap superlatives on their favorie movie and they can't think of anything better to say. The closest they come to making any meanignful sense is in a case like RINGU, which is not only a great film but a film that establishes a set of conventions that become instantly recognized and repeated.

As for arguments about whether movies like GONE WITH THE WIND are classics, one should point out that there is a difference between a classic and a masterpiece. Like it or loathe it (I put myself in the latter category), GONE WITH THE WIND is an established classic of cinema by virtue of the place it holds in film history. It is reasonably easy, however, to make a case that is not a masterpiece but an overr-rated soap opera.

hey...that was great....but could you say a little bit more around this sentence :
"a film is old enough to be considered a classic when those stylistic elements that once made it seem modern and comtemporary have become so dated that they now appear artificial and stylized."

Gee, I was afraid I was being too long-winded in my previous post -- and now you want me to say more?

i like the way you worded that.

yes :D

Classics?
 

I have a few old books about horror from the 60s and 70s that say the Night of the Living Dead and Nosferatu(1922) are shit. It sounds very odd nowadays, one book said "Nosfertu is too grotesque and has no art to it".

Re: Classics?
 

I have to agree about NOSFERATU. The line I like to use about that film is in regards to the image restoration done for the film's release on laserdisc and later DVD. The people involved in the restoratin bragged about the background details now visible in the sets. "Great," I thought, "now we can -- quite literally -- WATCH THE PAINT DRY!"

Hollywodgothiq, your statement about stylized elements, etc perfectly points out what I was thinking, but could not articulate, about how with technology changing the face of movies so quickly classics may be made faster now than they were before. Jurassic Park is a classic (or a curse) in the sense that it ushered in the wide use of CG, like King Kong set the stage for stop motion monsters even though it had been done years earlier. The big movies make the style acceptable to the public, then it becomes commonplace and eventually only a few movies that use that style are still worth watching.

The fact that many people would not see many classic films is just part of being a classic. People need to have an appreciation for the time period and styles used to want to see a classic film.

GONE WITH THE WIND has got to be one of the worst classics ever made, but it set the stage for every chick that follows it. Thankfully they have gotten shorter (although that is changing too).